Exit Kenny Wilkins

As speculated yesterday, the opening of spring practice brought with it news of departures. None are significant in terms of playing time, as they consist of a couple walk-ons and the uber-buried, but one guy was a scholarship player: Kenny Wilkins.

The writing had been on the wall in regards to Wilkins for a long time. He was left off the fall camp roster last year in favor of walk-ons*; my only memory of him is that one time he got destroyed by walk-on OL in Brady Hoke's first spring game, paving the way for the one offensive play of any significance. He was slated to be a redshirt junior this year.

This does open up a scholarship slot. Michigan is currently at 86 players, and may be at 85 depending on just which of the kickers/snappers have scholarship slots this year.

As a recruit, Wilkins was 3/4 star tweener regarded as an athlete that didn't really know how to play football. His recruiting post prediction is not too wince inducing:

General Excitement Level: Moderate. It will take a lot of development to get Wilkins up to a playing weight, and his lack of technique could hold him back. He's a boom or bust (or meh) sort of guy.

At least he gives us another opportunity to regard the wreckage that was Rich Rodriguez's disastrous 2010 recruiting class. Hard hats required for next paragraph entry.

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What a disaster that '10 class has been. Just 6 guys out of 27 who actually play football (I am including Marvin Robinson in this number still), only three of whom are legitimate starter caliber for a team that expects to compete for Big Ten championships (that three includes Hagerup). This is why I don't have very high hopes for 2013. You can't take what is essentially a year off from recruiting and not have it come back to haunt you.

WOTS is that Wilkins lacked the intensity in the weight room and on the field to get much done. He came in looking like a future SDE and ended up the size of a NT, and he didn't carry that extra weight well.

Its too bad about carvin and demar, I think that they could have been good starting players for us. I know they aren't all-american players right now, in fact I have no idea if either are still playing football, but the athleticism was there for both of them if they had the correct coaching staff to develop them.

First of all, Brian, you forgot that THE THREAT was part of the 2010 class as well. I'd say he's played some football.

Second of all, Rivals ranked this class #20 in the country. Not up to Michigan standards, but certainly not apocalyptic as far as initial rankings go. So did we just get unlucky? Or did RR do a bad job of identifying/recruiting kids that had solid character and wanted to be at Michigan? A coaching change will always lead to attrition, but it doesn't seem like any of these guys showed the potential to contribute before bailing out on the new staff, a la Ryan Mallett.

on the day after signing day. if you look at guys from that class that actually managed to get on campus, there is a pretty good hit, then look at guys who left during or after the first year, it gets worse.

guh

Yes, but regardless of when it happened, there were a bunch of guys who we recruited who never made an impact on the field. My question is why the attrition rate was so severe for that class, when on signing day it looked like a halfway decent class.

Good luck to him, but that 2010 class was horrible. Some of them were just extreme misses - Cullen was highly-rated CB, and Dorsey was a top safety who just couldn't make the grade - but man alive were there a bunch of reaches and tweeners who never panned out. I will always think of Rodriguez as an offensive genius who could win with a particular type of player, but as a recruiter he just missed way too much to last here.

Wow-is the 2010 Michigan class the most disasterous of any "bigtime" university in the history of recruiting. Devin Garder was basically an instate gift, make Jake Ryan the only actual recruitment that we can give RR credit for. Truly amazing.